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A legal threat has forced Braver – the ad-free extension of the Brave Browser – to change the brand name, causing confusion among users.
Initially, it was known as Braver. It was a browser derived from the popular Brave browser, which was available as open source. It was an adware free browser but no longer exists due to legal threats from a “certain party”, so it had to change its name.
How it all started
The Braver browser came to life in June 2020, so it is relatively new. It came as a response to Brave’s alleged abuses. Practically, the team behind Brave suggests affiliate links into search engines in the attempt to make money – mostly through cryptocurrency exchanges. Braver aimed to fix this issue for its users.
The Braver team claimed on Twitter that it has managed to remove this automatic filling feature, so all the adware was removed. The BAT – Basic Attention Token – has also been removed, which helped the team behind Brave make money while promoting the software. However, the tweet has been deleted.
Just days later, Brave CEO Brendan Eich mentioned that this forked project will need to make some changes. His Twitter post claimed that the project will need a new name, not to mention a plethora of services and further updates. At the end of the day, he claimed that there will be no “free ride” on the Brave servers.
Legal threats and new names
Braver has managed to survive for just over a month. In early July, it was rebranded. The new browser is now known as the Bold Browser. The announcement was made over a few different platforms and exposed the reasons behind the update.
A “certain party” sent legal threats to some of the community members, threatening legal action and financial losses, because Braver was forked from Brave. As a direct consequence, the team behind Braver changed the name, as well as all the associations with the “browser that shall not be named.”
Is this enough for Brave to stop the legal action against Braver developers? No one can tell yet. However, the Bold Browser team mentioned that the threatening letter asked them to change the browser name and remove references. As a direct result, the Bold Browser team did their best to keep everything legal. Brave has not made any comments about the change yet.
New fork project in the near future
The move is only temporary, as apparently, the Braver developers are not planning on going too far with the browser. Instead, they are planning to fork Ungoogled Chromium in the future and forget about Brave. It has nothing to do with the legal profile though. Instead, it looks like the Brave coding is a little messy, and updating it would be a real challenge.
The future project will keep the Bold Browser name. It will bring in lots of privacy, as well as futuristic integrations – ipfs or web3, among others. There will be no advertising programs or sketchy reward schemes involved in the project.
